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Seoul - Park Geun-Hye will be sworn in as South Korea's
first female president next week - a historic landmark clouded by North Korea's
recent nuclear test and threats emanating from Pyongyang.

The daughter of the late dictator and vehement
anti-communist Park Chung-Hee, Park campaigned on a policy of cautious
engagement with Pyongyang in contrast to her hawkish predecessor, Lee
Myung-Bak.

But her plans are likely to be shelved, at least for the
short term, after the 12 February nuclear test angered the public in the South
and emboldened hawks in Park's ruling conservative party.

The UN Security Council is still debating how to respond,
but is almost certain to toughen sanctions on Pyongyang - a move that could
trigger a sharp response from the North and possibly even another nuclear test.

Kim Jang-Soo, a former defence minister who has been
appointed Park's national security adviser, signalled on the same day as the
test that the new administration's policy could "not be the same as
before".

Park strongly condemned the test and warned the regime of
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un that it would bring about its own collapse with
its complete isolation from the international community.

Park's first challenge will be hardliners in her own
party who are staunchly opposed to engaging Pyongyang and some of whom have
even begun calling in public for South Korea to build its own nuclear
deterrent.

"We urgently need to solve the unbalanced nuclear
capability between the two Koreas and may need nuclear arms ourselves for
minimum self-defence," said Won Yoo-Chul, a senior member of Park's New
Frontier Party.

A survey by Gallup Korea published on Wednesday showed
more than 60% of South Koreans support the idea of Seoul having its own nuclear
weapons capability.

At the same time, Park's efforts to mollify her party
hawks are being undermined by the increasingly bellicose statements coming from
the North.

On Tuesday, the North Korean envoy at the UN Conference
on Disarmament in Geneva warned that South Korea faced "final
destruction" if Seoul and its allies pushed for tougher UN resolutions
over the North's nuclear programme.

Sanctions

Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor of North Korea studies at
Dongguk University, said Park's hands would be tied after she took office.

"The UN Security Council will surely impose more
sanctions that will be supported by Seoul," Kim said.

"In that climate, I see little possibility for
substantial cross-border talks for six months at least."

Park had promised a package of substantial welfare
programmes aimed at the South's rapidly growing elderly population, but the
North's test has already resulted in a shift in spending priorities.

"We are now faced with an unexpected need to
increase the defence budget," Park said on Monday.

The North has traditionally sought to test the mettle of
the South's new leaders as they take office, sometimes with a view to forcing
Seoul -and the US - into negotiations.

Despite the difficult environment, Moon Chung-In, a
politics professor at Yonsei University, said Park needed to move swiftly and
"proactively" to position South Korea as the chief international
mediator with the North.

"That way Park will enjoy more diplomatic leverage
with China and the US than before... so she needs to take a more open and
proactive stance," Moon said.

Contracts frozen

Inter-Korean contacts have been effectively frozen since
Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing one of its warships in March 2010, and
halted almost all trade and aid to the impoverished North.

The North denied involvement, but went on to shell an
island on the South Korean side of their disputed maritime border in November
2010, leaving four South Koreans dead and sparking brief fears of a full-scale
conflict.

Paik Hak-Soon, a North Korean analyst at the Sejong
Institute think tank, said the hard-line stance of Park's predecessor,
president Lee, had failed to produce any results and should be discarded.

"If Park takes a confrontational stance, she will
end up repeating the same mistake as Lee, who not only failed to curb the
North's nuclear ambitions, but also saw inter-Korea relations worsen,"
Paik said.

"She needs to act as soon as possible to restart a
dialogue, though it won't be politically easy," he said.

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